Original subtitles

[TV static drones]

[bright tone]

[cheers and applause]

[bells tolling]

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- This was Wuhan in the first few moments of 2020,

celebrating the New Year like any other city.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

- On the morning of January 1st,

this speech by China's president was broadcast

all across the country.

Later that afternoon,

another message went out on state media.

This message faded into the background

when the whole country was celebrating.

It barely registered with people, including me.

[soft music]

I've lived in the U.S. for nine years,

and each year in January, I would return to my home

in China to celebrate the Chinese New Year

with my family.

This year, I traveled with my two-year-old son.

♪ ♪

This was the last moment I can remember

when life still felt normal.

♪ ♪

In the weeks and months that followed,

as the world plunged into chaos and confusion,

this image returned to my mind,

and the news bulletin

from that same day hung in my memory.

♪ ♪

When I look at these people now,

unaware of what was spreading between them,

I feel like we are all still standing there in that moment.

♪ ♪

On January 23rd, I left my son in China

so he could spend the holiday with my mom,

and I flew back to the U.S. for a work trip.

As soon as I landed in the U.S.,

the Chinese government announced

it was locking down Wuhan.

All 11 million people living in Wuhan were sealed off

from the outside world,

and other cities all around the country were starting

to barricade themselves

to stop the virus from reaching them.

Not knowing whether my family was safe

in our hometown 200 miles east of Wuhan,

I scrolled through the news,

trying to find more information.

On the evening of Wuhan's lockdown,

this was broadcast on national and local TV.

[applause]

While this was being broadcast on TV,

this is what was on social media.

[tense music]

- [coughing]

- People were dying on the streets.

Posts like these were deleted from social media

by government censors.

Simply filming on the street with a cell phone

became sensitive.

Finally, a family member who worked in the hospital

told me that our town had several confirmed cases,

but the government was ordering hospital staff

to keep it a secret.

I knew we had to get our son out of the country.

My husband bought the first available ticket

to pick him up.

I spent hours reading social media posts,

and I discovered a forum for people

who had tested positive but couldn't get treatment

because hospitals were overwhelmed.

Thousands of people were uploading their names,

ID pictures, phone numbers, and their X-rays

in hopes of getting some access to care.

Seeing these patients brought back memories

of a moment from when I was 11 years old.

My father was in the hospital getting treatment

for heart disease and was surrounded

by people who were dying.

[soft music]

My mom had to work nonstop to afford the medical bills,

so I stayed at the hospital taking care of my dad.

These lines of people waiting for care in Wuhan reminded me

of the lines I stood in to fill out paperwork

or get medication for my father.

I was small, even for an 11-year-old,

and people would often push past me,

and the staff would ignore me.

Not long after that, my father died

at 33 years old.

The grief and powerlessness I felt

at losing him like that,

wondering if he could have lived longer

had he gotten better care,

it shaped me into who I am

and later drove me to make documentaries.

I archived as many posts as I could,

and I tried reaching out to a few major newspapers

in the U.S. with the hope that news coverage

could somehow help these people.

♪ ♪

None of the newspapers I contacted

would pursue this story.

♪ ♪

I decided to try and contact local camerapeople

in Wuhan to start collecting people's stories.

What they sent was my first real glimpse

of what life in Wuhan looked like under quarantine.

♪ ♪

Every movement required approval from party officials.

Only people who got a special letter of permission

from the government could film at the hospitals,

and a few of them agreed to film for me,

each for different reasons.

This was some of the first footage

they filmed inside the hospital.

- [laughing]

- Oh.

Oh.

[indistinct chatter]

- [speaking Chinese dialect]

- When I noticed the camerapeople

were turning off their cameras

whenever they saw something negative,

I suggested that they put multiple cameras

in different places around the hospital

and keep filming all day long.

[monitor beeping]

[ventilator hissing]

This shot captured the cameraperson sitting down

to take a break.

I also told them to film nonstop

with their handheld cameras,

and they took the instructions very literally.

This shot of a patient's foot lasted for five minutes.

But then someone caught the cameraperson's attention.

- [sighs, voice breaking]

- This detail surprised me.

The father kept saying that he and his son were infected

in December.

This would have been a month

before the government announced the outbreak.

I wanted to interview doctors and nurses about this,

but I was told that every interview request had

to be approved by the government.

In one moment captured by a camera placed in the lobby,

the media was staging interviews

with doctors and nurses.

[indistinct chatter, laughter]

Everywhere our cameraperson filmed,

there were media crews working for the state

and local propaganda department.

I learned that the government sent hundreds of journalists

to report on the situation in Wuhan.

On TV, the propaganda department

laid out its strategy for covering the outbreak.

Positive is a word that I heard over and over on TV.

Even some of our camerapeople agreed that it was important

to portray the situation positively,

and one of them explained why.

Many doctors would only tell positive stories.

Just a few agreed to speak with me but only anonymously.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

Unable to get doctors

from state-owned hospitals to speak,

I searched and found private clinic owners.

Chen and her husband, Liu, run a small clinic

near Huanan Seafood Market, the wet market

where the first COVID-19 cases were discovered

- [speaking Chinese dialect]

[person coughing]

All of these patients came in within four days

of each other in December.

Some of them later would test positive for COVID.

On December 26th, Doctor Liu developed a fever himself.

When his condition worsened,

he tried to get treatment at a hospital.

♪ ♪

Between January 1st and January 2nd,

4 different hospitals refused to treat Liu,

and none of them offered a reason that made any sense.

I gathered every source of information I could

on the early days of the outbreak

to see if I could find an explanation.

This article published by scientists from Wuhan

in an international medical journal said

the first known case of unexplained pneumonia

was recorded on December 1st.

On December 26th, a private lab tested samples

from patients.

One of the lab technicians posted their discoveries

about the virus on his blog.

They described the virus as a subtype of SARS.

They also shared their findings

with government health officials in Wuhan.

Then on December 30th, in a private group chat,

a few doctors in Wuhan warned friends and family

about this new SARS-like virus.

One of the doctors was named Li Wenliang,

who would later die after being infected by a patient.

Screenshots of these chats were circulated

on social media, and on January 1st,

those 8 doctors ended up on the news.

On the same day that the eight doctors were punished,

Liu visited four of the hospitals

where the punished doctors had been working.

He was turned away from all of them.

Many of the doctors at these hospitals must have known

this new virus was spreading between people,

but they were afraid to say so for fear of punishment

from the government.

- [crying]

[thunder rumbles]

- For three weeks following the punishment

of those eight doctors,

the government continuously reassured the public

that the virus was contained and wasn't spreading

between people.

[lighter clicks]

♪ ♪

[fanfare playing]

♪ ♪

- During this time as health-care workers

and patients were spreading the virus in hospitals,

the annual People's Congress in Hubei Province was held

in Wuhan.

Every province holds one of these meetings

at the beginning of each year.

It's a chance for party officials

to make big speeches and set the agenda

for the coming year.

[applause]

It would not have been a good time

to announce the spread of a new virus.

The Congress lasted for two weeks,

and during that time, the government announced

each day that there were no new coronavirus cases.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

On January 20th,

2 days after the Congress ended,

the government announced for the first time

that the virus could spread between people.

♪ ♪

Three days later, the city was locked down.

Hospitals and emergency hotlines

immediately were overwhelmed.

♪ ♪

[phones ringing, indistinct chatter]

[device beeps]

[beeping]

The footage the camerapeople sent me

revealed so many families facing this exact situation.

A loved one was near death,

but no hospital would admit them.

[indistinct chatter]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

This shot of medics walking to pick up a patient

lasted for 15 minutes.

The roads and entrances to many neighborhoods

had been blocked during the lockdown.

It often took the medics a long time

to reach a patient.

As I watched them pass by each building,

I thought of the people who posted their chest X-rays

on the social media forum.

I wondered how many of them could have been sitting

by their apartment windows

watching the medics come closer,

only to pass their window

and disappear around the corner.

I thought the government would have wanted

to conceal moments like this from the public,

but instead, outbreak stories

were broadcast nonstop on TV.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- After watching hundreds

of these state media programs myself,

I saw a pattern of story types that were being approved

by the propaganda department--

stories that inspired confidence and hope.

One topic in particular kept showing up in the broadcasts.

[baby crying]

These stories were nationally televised

and watched by millions.

When I lived in China, I remember feeling moved

watching these kinds of state TV broadcasts

about regular people overcoming adversity,

fighting for each other.

But I don't remember ever questioning

where the adversity came from in the first place

or why the government's propaganda department

was showing it to me.

But now it's clear that when the government

is telling us where to look,

they're also telling us where not to look.

[line trilling]

I called the people on the social media forum

who had posted their X-rays and phone numbers online.

♪ ♪

[overlapping chatter in Chinese dialect]

♪ ♪

Each person I spoke to described unbearable trauma

and loss.

♪ ♪

Ding is a taxi driver.

His mother died in a hospital lobby

after waiting days for a bed.

The nurse told him not to cry or wipe his tears

because it would increase his own risk of infection.

Yawen is a college student

whose entire family was infected.

Her father and grandfather died one day apart.

Zhou Li and her husband were infected

and went to sleep on the floor of a hospital lobby

to protect their 13-year-old son from infection.

♪ ♪

Li Qiong's husband and daughter are both

U.S. citizens.

They traveled to Wuhan for the Chinese New Year celebrations.

When the lockdown started,

her husband and daughter managed to board a flight

back to the U.S., but Li Qiong stayed in Wuhan

to care for her father, who was infected.

When I first learned Li Qiong's story,

it reminded me of when I had to get my son out of China.

♪ ♪

- Once my son was home, I was full of anxiety

and guilt about being separate from my mother.

I worried about who would take care of her

if she got sick.

Li Qiong was living my worst fear.

- [sniffles, voice breaking]

- Wicinski's wife Li Qiong's father,

who's been ill with the virus, was waiting for weeks

to get a hospital bed.

He says hospital beds are hard to find.

His wife and her dad are sleeping in the parking lot

just to be first in line.

- Wicinski says with the hospitals full,

they were left to care for him alone.

- Frank Wicinski and his three-year-old daughter--

- Just as I reached out to reporters in the U.S.

to find help, Li Qiong's husband, Frank,

went to the media, hoping that the exposure

could somehow help Li Qiong and her father.

- And then now she...

- But Frank's interviews had a different impact

that neither of them expected.

- [coughs]

- Now Frank can't stop coughing,

so he takes a swig from his daughter's water bottle,

hands it back, and she continues

to drink from it, uh-oh.

- [coughs]

- This moment of him coughing went viral.

♪ ♪

Looking through the thousands of comments

on Frank's interview, I wondered,

why did so many people believe that Frank was part

of some conspiracy?

And what convinced them that the virus wasn't a threat?

- Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?

- No, not at all, and we're--we have it totally under control.

We think we have it very well under control.

- The risk to Americans is low.

- By April, you know, in theory,

when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.

- Right now don't worry about it.

Be more concerned about influenza.

- The immediate risk

to the general American public remains low.

- This is a flu. This is like a flu.

- Americans, independent of where they live in this nation,

are at low risk.

The American public needs to go on with their normal lives.

♪ ♪

- And tonight with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak,

the first confirmed case in New York City.

Governor Cuomo is reminding New Yorkers the risk

of getting coronavirus remains low.

- For the vast majority of New Yorkers,

life is going on pretty normally right now,

and we want to encourage that.

There's very little threat here.

This disease, even if you were to get it,

basically acts like a common cold or flu.

- Like most people in the U.S.,

I trusted that the risk here was low

and lived my life normally.

My mom saw the news that the virus had reached New York.

She called and told us to wear masks outside.

She sent me a video of a friend of hers

being caught without a mask in public.

He was detained the next day.

The video made me angry at the Chinese government

for overreacting.

I told my mom she was being paranoid,

and I translated and sent her videos

from American experts.

- Right now in the United States,

people should not be walking around with masks.

- You're sure of it?

'Cause people are listening really closely to this.

- Right now people should not be--there's no reason

to be walking around with a mask.

- Then in an instant, everything changed.

- Confirmed cases in New York City is now 36.

Now 53, 154, 183,

329, 814,

3,615,

5,151. [sirens wailing]

- We're going to put out an executive order today.

100% of the workforce must stay home.

[haunting music]

♪ ♪

- Just like in Wuhan, America's largest city went

from hearing that the virus didn't pose a threat

to finding itself under lockdown.

♪ ♪

I watched the news each day in disbelief.

How did I not see it coming

even though there had been so many warning signs

since I first came back to the U.S. from China?

On January 23rd, the day of Wuhan's lockdown,

when I arrived at customs,

there was no temperature check,

nobody asking where I had come from

or if I was feeling sick.

Then a week after coming back from China,

my son Jamie developed a fever.

Our first thought was that he might have been infected.

When we took him to the ER,

the doctors said he couldn't get tested

and told us not to worry.

They said the virus wasn't spreading in the U.S.

and they sent us home.

I felt surprised that he couldn't get tested,

even though he'd just come from China and had symptoms,

but I trusted the doctors.

They were the experts,

and they were following the CDC's guidelines.

- [coughs]

- We self-quarantined just to be safe,

and after a week, Jamie was back to normal.

Just a few weeks later when I looked out my window

in New Jersey, I started to see reflections

of scenes from Wuhan.

By April, the nearest testing site to my home was filling

to capacity hours before it opened.

I realized that I had fully bought into the idea

that America was too advanced

to suffer an outbreak like China's,

but every time I turned on the news,

I heard echoes of China's outbreak

all across America.

- Hospitals across the country are bracing for a surge

in coronavirus patients--

- Frontline medical workers are facing shortages

of N95 masks--

- Pictures of nurses in a New York City hospital

wearing garbage bags--

- We don't have the equipment to tackle this problem.

- Where hospitals are overwhelmed.

- Hospitals are getting close to being overwhelmed.

- Our ICU is 95% full this morning.

- This is overwhelming hospitals

and first responders.

[monitor beeping]

- When they were shutting down Wuhan,

I was really concerned about the videos

that were coming up online,

so I started asking questions in the hospital.

What are the protocols?

What are gonna be the procedures?

How are we gonna handle the situation,

and how are we preparing for this?

They told me, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're preparing."

There was nothing ever...

provided to us as far as information or training

until the first patient actually came to the hospital,

and that same day,

they were trying to train the nurses

how to don and doff the PPE,

but nothing was ever given in writing.

It's sort of like walking into a fire,

and you have nothing to stop the fire,

and here you are, raising the alarm

and trying to call for help,

and everybody's just kind of brushing you off.

I was accused of causing hysteria

and spreading rumors.

- It sounded exactly like the way doctors

in Wuhan were punished for sounding the alarm.

It was a pattern across the country.

- An emergency room physician lost his job

after publicly criticizing the hospital's response

to the coronavirus.

A nurse has been fired for posting a video online.

- He was fired after expressing safety concerns

to the media.

- Hospitals are warning them not to talk to the media.

- Nurses in one of our floors were wearing garbage bags

because they were denied gowns.

The moment you open your mouth,

you conceivably could become a target,

and then they're gonna try to take away your job.

People who were outspoken about PPE--that happened

to another nurse, I think, further north in Jersey.

- This is what they tried to make me wear.

This surgical mask is the thinnest I've ever seen.

It's like toilet paper.

I had a few N95s at home.

I would take one with me to work.

Our manager came up to me and told me

that I had to take off my gloves and mask

and that I wasn't allowed to wear them.

And then I even--I made the plea for her

to let me wear it because I had promised my son

that I would protect myself and him and my family

while coming in to the hospital.

And at that point in time, my supervisor told me

that she strongly suggests I find a different career.

- There's never been, like, a great communication

of, like, "Listen, these are our supplies.

"This is what we have.

This is how we have to ration these things," you know.

The first few weeks of it,

the CDC standards were changing almost daily,

and it was not based on science but based on supplies.

And every day you come in, and there'd be a new standard.

And so each day you're trying to understand,

you know, why is this okay today?

- When the CDC

produced their new and improved guidelines

and the CDC was saying that we didn't need

to wear masks outside,

you know, going to public places

and that we weren't protected by wearing them,

I knew initially-- I knew immediately

something was wrong.

I believe that the CDC made that guideline

to provide ample supply to the health-care workers,

but instead, they should have stated their intentions.

And now that they've altered their recommendations

based on supply, I feel that not only myself

but a lot of health-care workers are having a problem

trusting in the CDC now.

- The CDC went as far as saying that if we didn't have a mask,

just wear a scarf.

What kind of agency are you?

How can you have any credibility?

How can you ever expect that we will believe you or trust you?

This is the reflection of a broken system

that was already on the verge of death!

When I decided to speak up,

I said, "I'm gonna lose my job.

They're probably gonna fire me the next day."

But I didn't care, because it was so bad,

nothing mattered anymore.

♪ ♪

I'll never forget a patient who had,

"Do not intubate, do not resuscitate"

orders already.

They actually allowed the wife to come

and say her last goodbye to her husband,

and she came out of the room...

[voice breaking] And she just stood there,

and she looked so lost.

She was crying, so I came over...

and I said I was sorry,

and if there was anything else I could do for her.

So she just nodded no, and then she said,

"Thank you for taking care of him."

And I gave her a hug. I gave her a hug.

I probably shouldn't have done that, but...

I felt so bad for her because she--

you know, I was glad she had the opportunity

to come and see him, but she was alone,

and it was just too much.

I didn't know what to do.

I just--like, we didn't know what to do.

We tried our best to do whatever we could,

and it didn't make a difference anyway for a lot of them.

[distant siren wailing]

♪ ♪

- At the time when I spoke with Diana,

she had been isolating herself

from her husband and three kids.

She filmed video diaries to show people

what health-care workers were going through.

When I talked to health-care workers like her,

I noticed they'd often burst into tears at times

when they talked about the death they witnessed

or their separation from their families,

but also at times that seemed unexpected to me.

- I'm sorry, hold on. [chuckles]

[clears throat]

- It was then I realized how vast their trauma must be

and how invisible it still was to the rest of the world.

♪ ♪

- I just--I guess I need a second.

Um...

♪ ♪

[clears throat]

Um...

all right.

I was just talking with my neighbor today,

if I can say this, she was-- and we were talking

about how everyone is holding up...

and...

and, you know, my fear...

♪ ♪

Jesus.

[sniffles]

[clears throat] I didn't know this was in me,

like, how upset I'm getting right now.

♪ ♪

Um...

there are nurses, especially in the ICUs,

who are dealing with a lot of death

and a lot of just patients crashing.

You know, a lot of the patients,

once they're intubated, don't necessarily make it.

And I work in the ED.

We had some patients like this, but we didn't have them

to the degree and for the length

that those ICU nurses have, and...

if...

if this is how this is making me feel,

I don't know how those nurses are gonna crash

once they stop and start talking about this stuff.

♪ ♪

[monitor beeping]

♪ ♪

- More than 40,000 health-care workers

from other provinces were sent to Wuhan

to help local hospitals.

They left their own families for two months

and stayed in Wuhan until a few days

before the lockdown was lifted.

When I saw them taking off their suits,

I realized how young many of them were.

Their lives had barely started,

and they found themselves far from home,

fighting an unknown virus, surrounded by chaos and death.

On the day they prepared to leave Wuhan,

the local authorities held celebrations

to thank them.

These events celebrated the Communist Party

as much as they celebrated the health-care workers.

[applause]

I've seen ceremonies like this play out

over and over after major disasters in China.

People emerge from the trauma of these events

with even stronger patriotic sentiment than before.

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

- [singing in Chinese dialect]

♪ ♪

[all singing in Chinese dialect]

♪ ♪

- Disasters become propaganda tools

instead of inspiring change.

These images become the official history

of the disaster.

It was another triumph for the Communist Party.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[bells tolling]

The day Tao went to the funeral home

to pick up the ashes of his son,

our cameraperson followed him there.

♪ ♪

It was the second time our cameraperson tried

to go to the funeral home.

The first time he almost was arrested.

At the time, I couldn't understand

what was sensitive about people collecting the ashes.

I suggested that the cameraperson film

from inside the car.

♪ ♪

The government prohibited funerals

and formal ceremonies,

so many people made small traditional death offerings

on sidewalks.

By April, the official death toll

from COVID in Wuhan was 3,335.

Most victims' ashes had been held

by state-run funeral homes until then,

and when the government announced the ashes

would be released to family members,

it ordered that all remains be collected and buried

within two weeks.

[indistinct chatter]

[indistinct chatter]

♪ ♪

This was one of 16 public cemeteries in Wuhan.

The city has 8 funeral homes,

and all of them are run by the state.

Since the outbreak,

the government has heavily restricted reporting

on the funeral homes.

One employee agreed to speak to me anonymously.

[people chanting]

- [crying]

[people sobbing]

[crowd chanting]

all: Open California! Open California!

Open California! Open California!

Open California!

- Reopen Florida! - Reopen Florida!

- Reopen Florida!

all: Open Illinois! Open Illinois!

Open Illinois! Open Illinois!

[cheering]

- When do we want it? - Now!

- Not a single person do I know

that has had the coronavirus,

not one, not one, and I know a lot of people.

- They're inflating the numbers of the COVID deaths.

The CDC is actually paying hospitals

to call deaths COVID.

- I know the propaganda's out there,

and I can't stand it.

If you really want to know, I'm pissed off.

- Say no to anybody who tells you

that the most important thing for you to do is

to listen to your government, give up your God-given right.

- Any governor that's given an order

for people to stay at home or to wear face masks,

you're violating our liberty.

all: [chanting] Freedom, freedom,

freedom, freedom, freedom!

- As I watched the protesters in America,

I thought about Peien.

He said that tens of thousands died in China

because there was no freedom of speech.

I wondered what he would think

if he could see what was happening here.

- I feel like the American government is trying

to be more like China, which is a communist country,

and I feel like being free is what separates us

from other countries.

- Nine years ago when I moved to the U.S.,

it was the idea of freedom that attracted me.

I had never seen a protest until I came to the U.S.

The closest thing to a protest I had ever seen in China

was six people standing on the side of the road,

and all of them ended up in prison.

Nobody would look at these people

and say that they are free.

all: USA, USA!

- But is this what freedom looks like?

- USA! - I was born here!

You can't tell me to leave! - You're not looking at facts!

These are facts!

- You're a fascist! - I'm a fucking fascist!

[indistinct shouting]

- Right here. I got my mask under my balls.

[cars horns honking]

You got nothing to say, do you?

I didn't think so.

- I recognized the confidence the protesters had.

I felt the same way when my mom called

and told me to wear a mask.

I trusted the experts I was listening to.

- People should not be walking around with masks.

There's no reason to be walking around

with a mask.

- And I recognized that same sense of trust

in the way the protesters repeated what they heard

from people they trusted.

- You treat this like a flu.

This is a flu. This is like a flu.

- It's going to be around forever.

It's a new strain of the flu. That's what it is.

- What we have right now is a bad case

of the flu running loose,

and we've decided to close down the country.

- Mr. President--

- Mr. President, have you seen anything

that the Wuhan Institute of Virology

was the origin of this virus?

- Yes, I have. Yes, I have.

- Personally, I think it was a man-made virus.

- I would believe that they would have done that

on purpose for population control.

- I believe it started in a lab.

- Scientifically modified or manipulated in laboratories

with patents held by Bill Gates.

This is all information that's all out there.

You hold the patent, you hold the vaccine,

you hold the virus, you hold the "plandemic."

- You know, these people, they're ignorant.

This is not a political agenda.

This is something that we have to come to and unite.

We have to be united to fight this.

This is stupid.

- When I first saw the protesters,

I had the same reaction.

It was tempting to dismiss them

as crazy or brainwashed.

But as I listened more carefully,

I heard them expressing the same fear

of misinformation that I had.

- Our concern here is that now it has become political.

The most important fact is to get data

that is 100% accurate, not politically manufactured.

- Accurate information is absolutely imperative

because we have too many people that just follow the leader,

and the leader could lead 'em to the edge of a cliff,

and they would go, and that's what will happen

with our country.

- Don't accept blindly what we're saying to you.

Right now the problem is people are just blindly accepting

what the government says to 'em.

And they have to understand that when you do that,

you unwittingly sell your soul to tyranny.

- We all think of ourselves as capable

of separating truth from falsehood,

but how can we make that distinction

when misinformation comes from the people

we are supposed to trust?

all: USA, USA, USA!

USA, USA, USA!

- New concerns tonight as more states

break coronavirus daily case records.

As the country reopens,

former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb

is sounding the alarm.

- The worry is that they're gonna tip over

into exponential growth coming this week.

- I remember thinking back

when this whole pandemic started.

I was scared, and I just prayed.

I said, "God, please let me see my 34th birthday."

And I think a lot of people think like that now.

Doctors and nurses and firefighters

and MTA workers and...

People are just--

it got to a point, people were just dropping like flies.

♪ ♪

The funeral's really for the family,

and when you really get to meet the families

and you get the narrative about these people

who once lived like you and I...

So you get the narrative he was a teacher,

he was a doctor, he loved music,

he loved this, he loved that, she was a great mom,

a great grandmother.

♪ ♪

- Infections are soaring to new highs across the country.

- Saturday Florida broke its single day record--

- The last four weeks, the United States

has seen a 42% increase in the number of deaths.

- With a stunning number-- - A grim milestone--

- Mark the latest grim milestone--

- It's the highest total of any country in the world.

[fanfare playing]

♪ ♪

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- At the beginning of the outbreak,

I thought the public would demand greater transparency

from the government,

but several months later,

only a few critical voices remain.

[indistinct chatter in Chinese dialect]

Chen Qiushi is a human rights lawyer

and citizen journalist who livestreamed the reports

from the ground in Wuhan when the outbreak started.

He posted his videos on YouTube,

and they were viewed millions of times.

Two days after he interviewed Peien,

he disappeared.

This was the last video he posted

before his disappearance.

Since Chen Qiushi's disappearance,

more than a dozen activists have been arrested

or disappeared for documenting Wuhan's outbreak.

- A Chinese citizen journalist was arrested by police.

- Li Zehua, 25, a citizen journalist in Wuhan.

- Fang Bin went missing.

- Cai Wei and Chen Mei,

they have published censored articles

on China's handling of the Wuhan virus.

- 37-year-old Zhang Zhan was found guilty on Monday.

- Zhang Zhan was found guilty.

- Zhang Zhan has been sentenced

to four years in prison.

♪ ♪

- Hearing news of the arrests reminded me

of the news announcement from January 1st.

♪ ♪

It's hard for me to picture how all of this might end.

But I can clearly imagine

how this could have begun differently.

♪ ♪

- Chinese officials are warning

that a new infectious disease identified in Wuhan

has potential to spread widely.

The CDC is working to roll out a massive testing program.

The president is urging all Americans

to avoid unnecessary travel.

♪ ♪

[crowd cheering]

- Of course, that wasn't how all of this began.

A year later, the New Year's celebration

in Wuhan looks almost exactly the same as the year before.

♪ ♪

[bell tolling]

[cheers and applause]

The whole world seems eager to return

to a feeling of normal,

but it was circumstances we considered normal

that created the crisis we are living through now.

There will be an ending to the pandemic,

but I worry that something even more frightening

is just beginning.

- The World Health Organization

has praised China's response.

- I will praise China again and again.

- China mounted the most effective containment program

in history.

- The coronavirus may put China in a stronger position.

- Authoritarianism was already on the rise

before COVID-19.

- Authoritarian leaders are using this

to push through autocratic measures.

- It started out as a medical crisis.

It has become a test of our form of government.

♪ ♪

- I have lived under authoritarianism,

and I have lived in a society that calls itself free.

In both systems, ordinary people become casualties

of their leaders' pursuit of power.

♪ ♪

[bright tone]